THE WELCOME
But see: my lady comes. I hear her feet
Upon the sward; she standeth by my side.
Just such a face Raphael had deified,
If in his day they two had chanced to meet.
And I, tossed by the tide of circumstance,
Lifting weak hands against a host of swords,
Paused suddenly to hear her gentle words
Making powerless the lightnings of mischance.
I, who was but a maker of poor songs,
That one might sing behind his prison bars,
I, who it seemed fate singled out for wrongs—
She smiled on me as smile the nearest stars.
From her deep soul I draw my peace, and thus,
One wreath of rhyme I weave for both of us.
THE SHRINE
Were I but as the master souls who move
In their high place, immortal on the earth,
My song might be a thing to crown her worth,—
‘Tis but a pathway for the feet of Love.
But since she walks where I am fain to sing,
Since she has said, “I listen, O my friend!”
There is a glory lent the song I send,
And I am proud, yes, prouder than a king.
I grow to nobler use beneath her eyes—
Eyes that smile on me so serenely, will
They smile a welcome though my best hope dies,
And greet me at the summit of the hill?
Will she, for whom my heart has built a shrine,
Take from me all that makes this world divine?
THE TORCH
Art’s use what is it but to touch the springs
Of nature? But to hold a torch up for
Humanity in Life’s large corridor,
To guide the feet of peasants and of kings!
What is it but to carry union through
Thoughts alien to thoughts kindred, and to merge
The lines of colour that should not diverge,
And give the sun a window to shine through!
What is it but to make the world have heed
For what its dull eyes else would hardly scan,
To draw in a stark light a shameless deed,
And show the fashion of a kingly man!
To cherish honour, and to smite all shame,
To lend hearts voices, and give thoughts a name!